Ptolemy I Soter, (born 367/366 bc, Macedonia—died 283/282, Egypt) Macedonian general of Alexander the Great, who became ruler of Egypt (323–285 bc) and founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which reigned longer than any other dynasty established on the soil of the Alexandrian empire and only succumbed to the Romans in 30 bc.

Ptolemy I Soter, portrait on a silver tetradrachm; in the British Museum

Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum

Early life and career

Ptolemy was the son of the nobleman Lagus, a native of the Macedonian district of Eordaea whose family was undistinguished until Ptolemy’s time, and of Arsinoe, who was related to the Macedonian Argead dynasty. He was probably educated as a page at the royal court of Macedonia, where he became closely associated with Alexander. He was exiled in 337, along with other companions of the crown prince. When he returned, after Alexander’s accession to the throne in 336, he joined the King’s bodyguard, took part in Alexander’s European campaigns of 336–335, and in the fall of 330 was appointed personal bodyguard (sōmatophylax) to Alexander; in this capacity he captured the assassin of Darius III, the Persian emperor, in 329. He was closely associated with Alexander during the advance through the Persian highland. As a result of Ptolemy’s successful military performance on the way from Bactria (in northeastern Afghanistan) to the Indus River (327–325), he became commander (triērarchos) of the Macedonian fleet on the Hydaspes (modern Jhelum in India). Alexander decorated him several times for his deeds and married him to the Persian Artacama at the mass wedding at Susa, the Persian capital, which was the crowning event of Alexander’s policy of merging the Macedonian and Iranian populations.

Satrap of Egypt

Ptolemy, who distinguished himself as a cautious and trustworthy troop commander under Alexander, also proved to be a politician of unusual diplomatic and strategic ability in the long series of struggles over the throne that broke out after Alexander’s death in 323. Convinced from the outset that the generals could not maintain the unity of Alexander’s empire, he proposed during the council at Babylon, which followed Alexander’s death, that the satrapies (the provinces of the huge empire) be divided among the generals. He became satrap of Egypt, with the adjacent Libyan and Arabian regions, and methodically took advantage of the geographic isolation of the Nile territory to make it a great Hellenistic power. He took steps to improve internal administration and to acquire several external possessions in Cyrenaica (the easternmost part of Libya), Cyprus, and Syria and on the coast of Asia Minor; these, he hoped, would guarantee him military security. Although he pursued a friendly policy toward Greece that secured his political influence there, he also succeeded in winning over the native Egyptian population.

In 322 Ptolemy, taking advantage of internal disturbances, acquired the African Hellenic towns of Cyrenaica. In 322–321, as a member of a coalition of “successors” (diadochoi) of Alexander, he fought against Perdiccas, the ruler (chiliarchos) of the Asiatic region of the empire. The coalition was victorious and Perdiccas died during the fighting. Ptolemy’s diplomatic talent was put to the test during this war. When the satrapies were redistributed at Triparadisus in northern Syria, Antipater, the general of the European region, became regent of the Macedonian empire and Ptolemy was confirmed in possession of Egypt and Cyrene. He further strengthened his position by marrying Eurydice, the third daughter of Antipater.

About 317 he married Berenice I, the granddaughter of Cassander, the son of Antipater. Cassander, at his father’s death in 319, refused to accept his father’s successor, made war upon him, seized part of the empire, and in 305 assumed the title of king of Macedonia. In the coalition war of 315–311, Ptolemy obtained possession of Cyprus. In this war he scored his most important victory in the battle near Gaza in 312, in which the Egyptian contingents were decisive. But war broke out anew in 310, and he lost Cyprus again in 306. He temporarily lost Cyrene as well and was unable to hold the important Greek positions of Corinth and neighbouring Sicyon and Megara, which he had captured in 308. He ultimately suffered overwhelming defeat in 306 in the naval battle near Salamis on Cyprus. The victor in this battle, Antigonus I Monophthalmus, who was assisted by his son, Demetrius Poliorcetes, assumed the title of king in 306. The remaining satraps, led by Ptolemy after he successfully resisted Antigonus’ attack on Egypt, also took the title of king in 305–304.

After naming himself king, Ptolemy’s first concern was the continuing war with Antigonus, which was now focussed on the island of Rhodes. In 304 Ptolemy aided the inhabitants of Rhodes against Antigonus and was accorded the divine title Soter (Saviour), which he was commonly called from that time. The dissolution of Alexander’s empire was brought to a close with the battle near Ipsus in Asia Minor in 301. During this battle Antigonus was defeated by the other kings. This led to the attempt by the remaining successors of Alexander to define their kingdoms. For this reason a dispute arose between Ptolemy and Seleucus I Nicator of Babylon over Syria, particularly the southern Syrian ports, which served as terminal points for the caravan routes. This quarrel, however, was temporarily settled peacefully through compromise. In addition to Coele Syria (Palestine), Ptolemy apparently also occupied Pamphylia, Lycia, and part of Pisidia in southern Asia Minor.

During the last 15 years of his reign, because of the defeats he suffered between 308 and 306, Ptolemy preferred to secure and expand his empire through a policy of alliances and marriages rather than through warfare. In 300 he concluded an alliance with Lysimachus of Thrace (modern Bulgaria) and gave him his daughter Arsinoe II in marriage in 299/298. At approximately the same time he married his stepdaughter Theoxena to Agathocles, the tyrant of Syracuse (southeastern Sicily). About 296 he made peace with Demetrius Poliorcetes, to whom he betrothed his daughter Ptolemais. To Pyrrhus of Epirus, Demetrius’ brother-in-law, who was at the Egyptian court as a hostage, he gave his stepdaughter Antigone. He finally brought rebellious Cyrene into subjection in 298, and in approximately 294 he gained control over Cyprus and the Phoenician coastal towns of Tyre and Sidon.

In a last coalition war in 288–286, in which Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus, and Pyrrhus opposed Demetrius, the Egyptian fleet participated decisively in the liberation of Athens from Macedonian occupation. During this war Ptolemy obtained the protectorate over the League of Islanders, which was established by Antigonus Monophthalmus in 315 and included most of the Greek islands in the Aegean. Egypt’s maritime supremacy in the Mediterranean in the ensuing decades was based on this alliance.

Ptolemy was able to evaluate the chaotic international situation of this post-Alexandrian era, which was characterized by constantly renewed wars with shifting alliances and coalitions, in realistic political terms. Adhering to a basically defensive foreign policy, he secured Egypt against external enemies and expanded it by means of directly controlled foreign possessions and hegemonic administrations. He did not, however, neglect to devote attention to the internal organization of the country and to provide for a successor. In 290 he made his wife Berenice queen of Egypt and in 285 (possibly on June 26) appointed his younger son Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who was born to Berenice in 308, co-regent and successor. The provision for the succession, which was based on examples from the time of the pharaohs, made possible a peaceful transition when Ptolemy died in the winter of 283–282. The early Ptolemies were occupied with the economic exploitation of Egypt, but, because of the lack of first-hand information, the details of Ptolemy’s participation in the process cannot be determined. It is certain, however, that discrimination against the Egyptians took place during his reign. The only town he founded was Ptolemais in Upper Egypt. He probably placed Macedonian military commanders alongside the Egyptian provincial administrators and intervened unobtrusively in legal and financial affairs. In order to regulate the latter, he introduced coinage, which until that time was unknown in Egypt.

He found it necessary from the outset, however, to pursue a conciliatory policy toward the Egyptians, since Egyptians had to be recruited for his army, which initially numbered only 4,000 men. Ptolemy won over the Egyptians through the establishment in Memphis of the Serapis cult, which fused the Egyptian and Greek religions; through restoration of the temples of the pharaohs, which had been destroyed by the Persians; and through gifts to the ancient Egyptian gods and patronage of the Egyptian nobility and priesthood. Finally, he founded the Museum (Mouseion), a common workplace for scholars and artists, and established the famous library at Alexandria. Besides being a patron of the arts and sciences, he was a writer himself. In the last few years of his life Ptolemy wrote a generally reliable history of Alexander’s campaigns. Although it is now lost, it can be largely reconstructed through the extensive use made of it later by the historian Arrian.